by Eva Hudson
Look Twice
AN INGRID SKYBERG THRILLER
Eva Hudson
VENATRIX
1
Ingrid stared at the defendant as he took the stand, searching his face and demeanor for signs of remorse. She hadn’t seen a new photo of James Jones since his arrest two years ago, and the man on the screen didn’t look much like his mug shot. Or the man she had seen on a dark night twenty years beforehand.
She had always imagined she would be in the courthouse when Megan’s killer was brought to justice. At first, she had assumed she would be giving evidence as a witness to her best friend’s abduction. And then, as she graduated high school without Megan, as she went to college and started work aware that Megan had been denied those milestones, Ingrid resolved to join the FBI and become the agent who arrested her friend’s murderer. But Ingrid had played no part in Jones’s arrest, and now she was watching his trial over the internet four thousand miles away at her office in London.
Ingrid had envisaged this exact scene countless times in the intervening decades, but nothing felt the way she had anticipated. Bile was not coiling in her stomach. Hatred was not raising her temperature. Disgust was not pooling under her tongue. Her overriding emotion was impatience. More than anything, she wanted the trial to be over. She knew she wouldn’t be good for much until James Jones was convicted and handed a life sentence.
Due to exceptional interest in the case, and the infirmity of Megan’s mom, Judge Isaacs had allowed three cameras into the courtroom. One was focused on the witness box, one was positioned above the jury’s heads allowing a wide shot of the court while keeping their identities private, and the final camera targeted the spot in front of the bench where the defense and state’s attorneys conducted their cross-examination. This meant the moment Jones took the stand was the first time anyone outside the court had seen what he looked like for two years. Like most monsters, he was disappointingly ordinary.
Jones was 42 but appeared a decade older. A combination of bourbon, meth and guilt. Despite the haggard face, the tabloids had dubbed him a Bruce Willis lookalike. He had a firm jaw, electric blue eyes and close-cropped hair that had turned a little grayer since his arrest. Ingrid thought he looked more like a guy who would make you a gyro than a Hollywood actor. The ‘House of Horrors’ case was always going to get a lot of attention. Twelve victims buried in the basement and the yard, another three chained and starved in outhouses. Add in a killer with ‘movie star looks’ and the trial was guaranteed a regular slot on the nightly news. Newspapers from both coasts had sent their crime reporters to Minnesota for the duration.
The cameras were not allowed to zoom or pan, but what the trial coverage lacked in production values, it had more than made up for with content. Some of the testimony from his three surviving victims had been so harrowing the cameras had gone black. Court TV was getting its highest ever viewing figures, and everyone from the BBC to Al-Jazeera had billed it the ‘Trial of the Century’. Lurid headlines all over the world gorged on the crimes of a depraved man who abducted young women and forced them to make brutal and sadistic pornography in the basement of his house. The videos that made him the most money had been the ones in which he killed them.
Jones raised his right hand, held the Bible in his left, and took the oath. ‘I swear by almighty God…” His voice retained a trace of his Texas childhood, but it was lighter and softer than Ingrid had expected. A tattoo poked out from under the cuff of a white shirt that the clerks would have given him from the Goodwill. Judge Isaacs never allowed defendants to appear in jailhouse jumpsuits. Ingrid knew exactly where the Goodwill cupboard was in the Jackson County Courthouse. A memory surfaced of two hookers she’d arrested when she was a deputy. They’d changed into shapeless smocks for their arraignment, but still tottered into the court room in six-inch stilettos.
Jones’s shirt was a little too tight, bulging over his torso and giving the impression that his time in the county jail had been spent working out. The jury was made up of eight women and four men: it looked like Jones intended to flirt his way to a not guilty verdict. Notorious killers always got fan mail, and it sickened Ingrid to think Jones probably got a sack of the stuff every month. He sat down, smoothed a hand over his chin, and smiled at his attorney. The movie star was ready for his close-up.
Ingrid threw the brown cardboard bowl that had contained her lunch in the trash, then picked it out. Not only had the embassy’s commissary started serving food in recyclable packaging, but there were now recycling points throughout the building. The nearest one was just outside her office door, but she didn’t want to step away from her monitor for even a second. She pushed the bowl away and saw that yesterday’s was still on her desk. Dried lettuce encrusted around its rim, an oily stain blooming at its base.
The Criminal Division office was a dump. In the previous six months, Ingrid had torn through a string of temporary assistants, none of whom had come to grips with the filing or the computerized systems. House plants that had been lovingly tended by Jen, Ingrid’s assistant for the previous four years, were now wilted and parched on the window sill. The calendar on the wall hadn’t had any appointments filled in since a bright young woman from Delaware had enthusiastically sat at the opposite desk for a couple of weeks in February. Ingrid had no idea why she’d burned through assistants so rapidly: she didn’t think it was anything she’d said or done.
She had stopped seeing how rundown the place had become. She’d stopped noticing the light that had been flickering above her desk for the past two weeks, and she no longer thought anything of having to restart the printer every time she needed a paper copy of something. It had been a very long time since she marveled at how the best crime fighting agency from the richest nation on earth could operate out of something that hadn’t had a lick of paint in her lifetime. There was no point calling maintenance as the answer was always the same: we will be moving to our new building shortly and a budget for these issues has not been allocated. ‘Shortly’ had lasted for at least two years, and the move to the new embassy had just been delayed again. Ingrid was grateful that the air conditioning worked: it hadn’t dropped below seventy degrees Fahrenheit––even overnight––in London for the past six days.
Footsteps and whispers from the courtroom dribbled out of the feeble speakers, and Ingrid remained glued to the screen as Jones’s attorney got to his feet.
“Mr. Jones, over the past three weeks, the State of Minnesota has laid out its case against you. We have heard from witnesses that you—”
The door flew open, and Ingrid gasped audibly. She turned quickly, guilt flooding her brain for being found watching TV. It was Jacob DeWalt, the newly promoted Supervisory Special Agent. “Boss, hi.”
“You don’t need to call me that.” DeWalt’s shirt stuck to a belly that was just overspilling his belt, and sweat patches stretched from under his armpits. “Geez, it’s cool in here.”
Ingrid sat up straighter and stacked the cardboard bowls in a vain attempt to make the place look tidier. “The AC is just about the only thing that does work in here.”
DeWalt––forties, balding, and affable like a dad in a teen melodrama––nodded at her screen and winked. “Hey, we’re all allowed to watch a little TV on our lunch break. Any news?”
“Jones has taken the stand.”
“I meant about the Tilbury bust.”
“Ah.” Ingrid squirmed. Heat flamed her cheeks. “Final planning meeting in a couple of days. Can I update you then?”
“Sure.” DeWalt raised his eyebrows. “And just to make sure that update actually gets scheduled, let me introduce you to… Zeke, your new assistant.”
Ingrid stood up as
a neatly dressed man in his early thirties walked in behind DeWalt. He extended his hand. “Zeke McDaniels, pleased to meet you.” Zeke had deep brown eyes, soft hands, a smooth accent that Ingrid guessed was from somewhere in Georgia, and a shy smile.
Ingrid shook his hand. “Ingrid Skyberg.”
“Oh, I know that. You’re the one who saved the First Lady, aren’t you?”
Ingrid looked at her shoes.
“She sure is,” DeWalt said. “Our very own hero with an entire cabinet of medals and commendations. But be warned Zeke, you think she’s this big hero, but you’re her seventeenth assistant this year.”
“It’s only June,” Zeke said.
“We haven’t figured out what she does to them yet. Maybe she buries them under the floorboards.”
Ingrid’s eyes widened, and DeWalt knew his gag had landed a heavy blow. He looked at her screen, then back at her. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.” He bit his lip. Embarrassed, he took a step backward. “Okay,” he said, keen to exit. “I’m going to let you two get acquainted. Go easy on him.”
DeWalt left the door open and the sounds of the bullpen where most of the civilian staff worked––ring tones, keyboard strokes, printers, chatter––filled the awkward silence that had suddenly solidified between Ingrid and Zeke. His demeanor had changed. The bright, smiling man she’d met thirty seconds ago seemed nervous, anxious even. He could no longer make eye contact and instead looked at the floor. What had happened to him? Perhaps her eighteenth assistant wasn’t very far away.
“Okay,” Ingrid said. “So, first things first, I’m real sorry about the mess. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have tidied up. I wouldn’t want you to think I was a total slob, I just have a lot on at the moment.” She glanced over at her monitor. “Apart from watching TV, that is.”
Zeke kept looking at the floor. The carpet was worn and stained from too many late-night pizzas and dropped cigarettes from the days when agents could smoke at their desks. It didn’t warrant a close inspection. “Mr. DeWalt mentioned the Jones case was happening in your home town. You must know the house where it happened.”
Actually, Ingrid didn’t. The House of Horrors was a farm about thirty miles west of Jackson, but when she’d been a deputy, she would have driven past it a hundred times. “It’ll be a long time before the town talks about anything else,” she said, clearing some of her paperwork off Zeke’s desk and stacking it on the third desk in the room that was occasionally used by an intern. “Once we get you onto the system, I can show you where the leads from the field offices are. Your main task will be assessing their priority and making sure—”
“I, um.” Zeke tried to say something. He raised his hand and looked up. His eyes rolled backward. His head jerked suddenly. His torso twisted round, and Ingrid stepped toward him. She broke his fall as he tumbled, cradling his head as he hit the floor.
2
Ingrid laid Zeke down on the carpet in the recovery position as his body continued to jerk and twist. His tongue lolled out of his open mouth. Ingrid closed her eyes and took a deep breath. At some point in the past ten years, she’d done a first aid course that covered epileptic fits. Come on, think!
She checked the time. 14:31. If he was still fitting in five minutes, she’d call for help. She shoved the trash can out of the way so he wouldn’t hit his head, got up and closed the door. Then she killed the lights to stop the flickering. She was about to call maintenance to come and fix the light, but she knew they wouldn’t arrive in time for Zeke.
Ingrid cleared a stack of newspapers off one of the visitor chairs and placed it on her desk, carefully wedging the legs between abandoned files, stray external drives and piles of business cards from people she could no longer remember. She checked on Zeke: his seizures seemed to be less jerky, but maybe that was just because she was less afraid. Action was always the best antidote to fear.
Ingrid climbed onto her desk, then stood on the chair to inspect the reprobate light fitting. It was one of those old-fashioned fluorescent tube lights inside an aluminum rectangular box. The bulbs were notoriously fragile. In the new building, the lighting would no doubt be LED and so high-tech they’d have to employ electrical engineers rather than maintenance operatives, but until the much-anticipated move, they were stuck with technology from the 1980s. Ingrid unclipped the aluminum casing and gently lowered it onto her desk. She checked on Zeke. He had stopped jerking. His chest moved visibly. She checked the time again. 14:35. If he was still unconscious in another five minutes, she’d phone down to the embassy doctor on the second floor.
The bulb wouldn’t budge. It was welded in place with eons of grime and there was no shifting it without shattering it. The only alternative she could think of was to disconnect it. She pushed a stained ceiling tile up out of its aluminum framework, moved it to one side, then stretched a hand into the void. She patted around in search of the cable and tugged on it.
The circuitry was so old it was the same vintage as the wiring in her childhood home. When you grow up on a farm thirty minutes from your nearest neighbor, the skills you acquire by the age of ten include basic wiring, small-bore rifle shooting, tractor driving and simple dentistry. She could do this.
Zeke let out a moan.
“Hey,” she said, clambering down from her perch. “How you doing?”
Zeke moved an arm, then stopped. It was too soon. Ingrid crouched in front of him and resisted the urge to stroke his face. Instead, she placed what she hoped was a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Take your time.”
He nodded and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Can I get you anything? A glass of water?”
He didn’t respond. Ingrid stayed still: she would take this at his pace. A minute or so later, he opened his eyes and gave her a look filled with terror.
“It’s okay.” She smiled at him.
He blinked several times, then pushed himself slowly up to a seated position. He scanned the room. “Is it just you?”
“Yup.”
He stretched out his arms. “Really?”
“You want me to call for help?”
“No, God no. Normally…” he swallowed hard to lubricate his throat. “Actually, a glass of water would be good.”
“I’m on it.”
Ingrid fetched a glass from the watercooler in the bullpen. When she returned to the Criminal Division office, Zeke was sitting with his head in his hands. Ingrid closed the door. “Here,” she said. “You want some Tylenol?”
He took a sip. “You’re way nicer than they said.”
Ingrid screwed up her face. “Who’s they?”
He nodded in the direction of the bullpen.
“And what did they say?” She paused. “Do I want to know?”
“Nothing that bad. I was just expecting someone, I don’t know… Whatever it was, you’re not it.”
Ingrid was used to colleagues thinking she was aloof. She was just slow to open up. She rummaged round in her desk drawer for a pair of scissors and some tape and spotted a pack of Tylenol. “Would these help?”
“Sometimes they help. Thanks. And thanks for not, well, for not making a scene. Most folks dial 9-1-1 and panic. I guess you must know someone who’s epileptic?”
Ingrid stepped up onto her desk. “I don’t, actually, but we get first aid training fairly regularly. I suppose some of it came back. ‘Make sure the patient doesn’t hit his head or swallow his tongue.’ That’s mostly what I remembered. I also figured it was highly unlikely to be your first seizure, but if it had gone on much longer, I might have yelled for backup.” She stepped onto the chair. “Did I do the right thing?”
“Yes, you did. And I didn’t pee my pants, so that’s a bonus.”
“That would not be a good move on your first day! But… I do have some track pants in my locker, so we’d have had you covered.”
“You got a solution for everything?”
“Try to.” She smiled and tugged on the cable. “You going to be okay? Y
ou need to lie down?”
He didn’t say anything for a while. “What are you doing?”
“Disconnecting the light. It was the flickering, right? That set you off?”
Zeke got unsteadily to his feet. “You know how to do that?”
“Fairly sure I know enough not to get myself killed.”
“Fairly?”
Ingrid was at full stretch, up on her toes.
“Here, let me help.” Zeke grabbed the legs of the chair, and Ingrid froze.
“It’s better if you don’t,” she said.
“Just trying to help.”
“Please let go.”
It was an order, not a request. Zeke took a step back and raised his hands. “You’re the boss.”
Ingrid looked at the wire, then looked over at the light switch and mentally mapped the likely route of the cables. If she was right, the switch had cut the current to the entire circuit and cutting the wire between her fingers shouldn’t be a problem. She studied the other lights and figured the distance between them meant they weren’t daisy chained. She rested the metal blades against the cable, exhaled hard, and squeezed the scissor handles together.
No boom. No puff of smoke. No dead hero. She craned to see where the plastic tape was and saw that Zeke was already holding it up for her. She gave him a smile. “Thanks. Seems you’re not clueless about wiring yourself.”
“Seven years with USAF.”
“Cool.”
“Medical discharge.”
“The epilepsy?” Ingrid wrapped the tape around the ends of the wire as the phone on her desk rang. Zeke didn’t miss a beat before swiping up the receiver. “Special Agent Skyberg’s phone… I’m sorry… No, I said Skyberg. If you mean Special Agent Skyberg, she’ll just be a minute... Be like that then.” He shrugged. “Whoever it was put the phone down.”
Ingrid slipped the scissors into her pants pocket and gripped the roll of tape between her teeth.